Google programme beats one of world's top Go players

Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme has beaten one of the world’s top Go (board game) players to secure a third straight victory.

The AlphaGo programme designed by Google’s subsidiary DeepMind, beat Lee Sedol, a South Korean professional Go player with 18 international titles, 3-0.

Lee who lost the five-match series was consoled by the developers of the AlphaGo programme.

“AlphaGo can compute tens of thousands of positions per second, but what’s really incredible is that Lee Sedol can compete with that just with the power of his mind and ingenuity and stretched AlphaGo to its limit in the last three games,” said Google DeepMind CEO, Demis Hassabis.

The complex board game originated in China more than 2,500 years ago and involves two players who take turns to place markers on a grid-shaped board to gain more areas on it.

The AI programme sought to approximate human intuition in tackling the game, most popular in countries like China, South Korea and Japan.

The match drew media attention as well as Go fans and the public at large.

AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol at Go (again): https://t.co/fVP5X58Y9Y

— Digg (@digg) March 12, 2016

Lee had initially expected to win the series, even if he were to lose a match or two, according to Reuters.

Two more matches will be played – on Sunday (March 13) and Tuesday (March 15).